Drum Circle Empowerment: Practical Paths and Optimization in College Students' Mental Health Education

College students’ psychological well-being and emotional development have attracted increasing attention in recent years, with challenges such as emotional fluctuations, social adjustment, and stress management becoming more prominent. Traditional approaches to supporting students’ psychological growth face limitations, including low engagement and limited interactivity. As an inclusive and collective musical interactive activity, drum circles offer unique advantages in promoting emotional expression, social connectedness, and self-confidence due to their participatory and improvisational characteristics. Grounded in relevant theoretical frameworks, this paper explores the connotation and core value of drum circle activities, elaborates on practical methods for integrating them into college students’ psychological education, and proposes optimization suggestions for implementation challenges. It aims to provide reference for enriching the forms and improving the effectiveness of college psychological education.